


Of Apples and Brine

by BloodthirstyKitten



Series: The 'Verse In Which the Monsters Wear Clothes [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Awkward Meetings, Demon Themes, Gen, Monster Girls, Objecthead, Original Character(s), Original Universe, POV Second Person, Spider Girl - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-05 22:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5393279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodthirstyKitten/pseuds/BloodthirstyKitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spider demons and cat objectheads get along surprisingly well. Not that the latter knows about the demon statue of the former. Not that the former has much choice than to stay with the latter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Apples and Brine

You are a demon, a killer, made of flesh and blood and the darkest of majycks. Your name is unknown, your age is unfathomable, and you are alone. Alone and naked, you sulk in the darkness of an ally and hope that nothing notices. You lick your lips, the mandibles sliding against each other under your fangs, and curl up in the shadow of a building. The moons are full above you, the kind of fullness that makes something ancient and angry itch under your skin. It’s been so long since you’ve seen them. They look as though they could fall at any moment, crash on your head and break the world in two.

The bullets in your joints fester. You hiss, digging claws into each wound and gouging out the intruder. It had been your mistake, you admit. You were foolish, stupid and hungry, spitting up seawater and trying to sink your teeth into a werewolf all in one breath. The ocean is unforgiving and makes you weak, thrashing and flailing and drowning a thousand times as you gouge your way out of the stone prison you had been left in. Down there the fish had glowed and had fangs longer than your legs. You wonder how long it’s been, trapped at the bottom of the sea. It had taken so long for your body to regrow, joints refusing in proper places. Some improperly too, to the point that you had to tear them off again and fix it right. You couldn’t die, but you hadn’t expected to be weak enough for your legs to snap when bent the wrong way too harshly. Like a fucking crab.

You’re weak from ocean, weak from salt and drowning and pressure so intense that your heart would have imploded if you were any less than what you are, and you hadn’t expected guns. Sure, you knew of them. Your masters had feelings, inklings that they etched into your mind long before the mortals had even thought of them. It itches now in your endoskeleton, a burning hiss that _you should have expected this_. You have no idea how long you’ve been gone. The world has moved on without you; sinners stink the world up so badly that your mouth drips with blue saliva and your stomach aches in the worst way.

You’re going to eat them all.

Every last one.

With each bite past your lips you will send their souls down to your masters as it was before – it was that way before, wasn’t it? It hurts to try to remember, your mind rattled and hungry. You’re starving, your stomach is screaming, and you would cry if that was something you knew that you could do.

Instead you stand, slowly, unfurling the legs you held tight against your back so that you could stretch just that little bit taller. You’re not sure what you’re doing yet. Kill them, probably, whatever it is that makes your glands drip. There’s something rapping behind your eyes, an insistent clomp-clomp-clomp.

“Hello?”

The sound hits you just before the smell does. Your stomach roils painfully, a amazingly intense whiplash that you have not felt for a very long time. She’s disgustingly unappealing, the exact opposite of everything wrong with the world. It makes you want to vomit with how suddenly your stomach twists up and settles into placidity.

Hmm.

You turn, twisting to look at her. She’s wearing boots with heels, extremely high heels. That could have been the clomp, you imagine. Your eyes sweep up and down her, from the high heeled boots to the fabric scissors clutched tightly in one hand and finally up to the fluffy cat floating above her neck. She has no head- or, rather, the cat is her head. How fascinating. You never did get the chance to see her kind thousands of years ago.

You blink twice. She’s shaking, the poor thing, reeking of fear. Now that you’re not starving, somehow, she doesn’t smell so unsettling.

“Who are you?” She asks. Not coming any closer, you note, but decidedly curious. Perhaps too curious for her own good, you think, because she’s not leaving either. The mortals you knew long ago would run from you, scattering like leaves in the wind. So you think, anyway. It’s hard to remember, difficult to place events. It’s been a long time.

Your name is... well, you’ve been called a scourge before, a curse, etcetera and so forth. You never really had one, you think, not the way that mortals have them. She seems to be getting impatient, however, if you go by how her cat head is acting. It’s almost hilarious.

So rather than say any of that or even deal with the girl you scramble up the wall on spider-strong legs and vault over the roof, out of sight. The moons stare down at you and at her as you creep back to watch her reactions.

She dropped the scissors.

You’re having a hard time not finding that amusing, but you’re having troubles because your stomach is screaming again and it hurts like nothing else could. You’re drooling too, even though you’re trying your best not to. It’s annoying, to say the least.

So you break into an apartment and eat three sinners, roommates, taking special delight in the marrow of their bones. They taste like assaulters, rapists, people who believe they’re entitled to others because they want it. Then you eat their bones too for good measure, because you’re still hungry even though your stomach feels like it’s going to tear open. It aches in you, quiet and fierce.

You barely make it through the night, claws itching and mandibles twitching. You have a hunger to last centuries.

You pick off easy targets, at first. People sleeping in doors they forget to lock, windows they never close. You don’t smell murder on most of them, no, just the savory smell of someone who never listened when their partner said “no.” Your hunger lessens only slightly with each oversized meal, even as you kill them silently. Some of them have roommates that sleep through anything, which you find vaguely hilarious. There are the men who wander at night, wolves and moths and other monsters, who wander off alone and never come back.

Eventually, and sooner than you imagined, people start to notice. You hear it in the air as you sit on roofs, the talk of the mysterious killer that’s been devastating their city. Back before you sank to the bottom of the ocean, you’d laugh at their talk and continue your kills without a moment’s hesitation.

As it is, your joints still smart where the gunshots drove iron into your shoulder and hip. It would be better to wait, you think. You even consider the thought of leaving town, finding newer pastures to bring to slaughter, but something insists you must stay. You’ve never done a half-job before, leaving a town before it’s been picked apart and half sent to your masters. They’ll just keep doing what they do if you leave, write it off as just an ordinary serial killer- they’ve already labelled you that, you can hear it on the wind.

Pathetic.

So you decide to slow down some, wait a bit. Let them get lazy again; it shouldn’t take so long.

So you think.

Your hunger, however, takes no such break. It’s hard to think rationally when you’re drooling. You need to not be so hungry or you’ll lose your mind.

-x-

You have a feeling you’re being watched.

You frown, halfway between school and home, and look around suspiciously. You should have known better than to take a class that ended at 9PM, but it fit your school and sleep schedule. And now there’s a killer around, so the reports around school have said. You took the bus, of course, but there’s only so far it can take you before you have to trek a few blocks. And you feel like you’re being watched.

You’re fucking terrified. All you have are your scissors to protect you. Curse you, curse your need to go to every class, curse your inability to have friends that could walk you home. Not that it would help, you remember, because people were killed whether they were alone or in a group. Perhaps you should move to a different town.

No, you can’t do that, you have class here. Damn it.

So you pull your arms closer to you, grab the scissors tighter, and march home. _Miau Maple Monet_ , you scold yourself, _this is what happens when you don’t talk to anybody and never make any friends. You could die alone via serial killer._

It’s highly unlikely but still possible, and that’s what scares you. You grew up in suburbia; is it any wonder you’re paranoid?

Regardless of paranoid delusions, you make it home alive and in one piece. The one-bedroom apartment you rent near campus is quaint, though a little big for you, and perfect for being alone. It’s better than living with your parents, anyway. They love you as much as you can, being the black sheep of the family. Or, rather, the grey cat of the family.

Ha. Objecthead joke.

You shake your head to yourself, the cat wobbling back and forth above your neck, as you open the door and step inside. And stop. Right there, curled up on your pile of scrap fabrics that you might use someday, is a giant, naked, pastel spider. It looks up at you, eyes blown wide, and you note the lack of white in those eyes. All solid, all dark dark blue. Almost the same blue that’s congealed at her shoulder- blood?

Belatedly, you start to freak out. For fucks sake, JESUS FUCKING SHIT THERE IS A RANDOM NAKED SPIDER PERSON IN YOUR HOUSE AND THEY’RE JUST ON YOUR STUFF DID THEY GET IN THROUGH THE WINDOW?? You drop your bag and brandish your scissors as menacingly as possible.

To your surprise the giant spider person skitters back, low, looking up at you with something almost akin to fear. Almost, you think, because a part of you (the cat part, perhaps) seems to think that it’s too calculated to be fear. It’s nothing else, however, and she only cows when you step closer.

Oh god your heart. Your goddamn bleeding heart.

You spin the scissors up, hold them carefully. “I’m not going to hurt you,” you say gently, palms open in surrender. “It’s okay. How did you get in here?”

She glances to the window. Of course. You should probably lock it – not a thought you often have, living on the sixth floor, but she is a spider. Those legs looks like they can grab onto the walls – or, if not grab, gouge into them. The points look deadly.

You notice, almost belatedly, that there seems to be a strange pixelation around her. A faint haze of pink and cyan distorting things behind her, throbbing between too faint to see and intensely present. A little worrisome, but then again, so is having a large naked pastel spider on your floor. You’re just under-informed.

“Do you have a name?” She shakes her head. “Can you talk?”

She opens her mouth, tries to say something you suppose. Except the sounds that come out of her mouth are not words, not even songs, just a cacophony of tumultuous notes that makes your skin crawl even as you decide it sounds absolutely wonderful.

“No, that’s a no, thank you.” She stops. You slowly come closer, watching her watch you. “Do you want to eat?” She shakes her head violently. “Do you... want some clothes?”

She blinks. Looks down at her nudity as though she’s never realized she wasn’t wearing anything. Looks back at you, shrugging slightly. Okay, you’re getting her clothes. Do you even own anything she can wear?

“Stay here.”

She nods. You turn around, head towards your closet. No, no, no. Too small, too small even for you, slightly big on you but definitely not big enough. She hasn’t stood up yet but you can tell she’s at least a foot taller than you and built more like a brick house than the lil waif you are.

Eventually, at the back of the closet, you find a folded up black and pink sweater. You remember this thing, you think as you yank it off the shelf. It was a gift, a sweater that you wanted for ages (black, pink sleeves and pink bottom, inverted pentagram on the front, a real adorable pastel goth thing), that your ex somehow managed to accidentally get XL rather than XS. You drown in it. It should be perfect for the behemoth in your living room.

You turn around victorious and leap about three feet into the air as the spider stands behind you, legs pulled up close against her body. She’s at least a foot taller, you were right, and probably even taller if she stands on the legs growing from her shoulder blades.

“I told you to stay!”

She shrugs apologetically. You get the feeling she doesn’t mean it.

“Can you put this on?”

She tries valiantly, taking three minutes to figure out how it works and an extra one or two trying to wrestle it over the legs before giving up. She looks down at you helplessly, legs akimbo and arms held at an awkward angle. It takes you a full minute to wrestle her back out of it, dark blue blood crusting under your nails as you yank it back over her head.

“Do you want a shower?” She looks confused. “Shower. Get clean. Soap and water and shampoo.” Her hair is thick and crusting, white gluing half the strands together. She smells of brine. “You should take one. I can fix this—“ you lift your sweater “–while you do.” She just stares. You sigh heavily, walking ahead. “Follow me.”

She follows you into the bathroom, startling when she catches sight of herself in the mirror. Not a surprise; she almost looks like death warmed over. She pokes at the reflection then herself as you fuss with water temperatures, keeping your head as far away from the spray as possible. You hate getting your head wet when you’re not showering. (Even when you are showering, honestly, you can clean it just fine other ways, the shampoo you’ve got is just for special occasions.)

“Water’s ready.” You say, respectfully looking slightly away so she can get in. She does not get in. “Go on, get in the shower.”

She slowly inches closer, mouth open. You recognize the look, you’ve done it often – scents washing over your hard palate, telling you what’s what. She probably got a face full of mint. Everything in your shower is either apple or mint.

“Go on.”

When she finally gets through the curtain, you’re tempted to stay and make sure she can wash herself sufficiently. You don’t want a comedic rendition involving a character with no understanding of vaguely basic things tries and fails to grasp the workings of the bathroom in a manner that would lend to the ruination of your home. You don’t have the money to pay for a ruined bathroom.

When she doesn’t seem to immediately get it, you cough. “Okay, I’ll help you out, give me a minute.” And after you fetch your scissors, needle, and thread, you come back. “Have you identified the soap?”

She holds a bottle out of the curtain.

“That’s shaving cream. The one you’re looking for is white and green.”

It goes like this for a full half hour as you cut and hem, instructing her on how to wash herself (and then to do it twice because she was actually pretty filthy) and what goes in her hair versus against the edges of her chitin plates. You don’t have anything specialty for it, unfortunately for her. She could use a good polish. And when she steps out you hand her a towel, drying her hair and then letting her do the rest of her body. The crude alterations you made to your sweater (cutting the back open, splitting it halfway down and sewing the sides inside) lets her put it on, the thing bunching at her wrists and spilling down over her ass. It would work almost as a dress, as long as she doesn’t lift her arms up.

“You still need pants,” you say as she inspects herself (clean, clothed, fluffy-haired) in the mirror. “But I most definitely don’t have anything that wouldn’t tear over your legs or hips right now. I can make you something later.”

She nods, picking at the sleeves. A thirty-six, thirty eight in the waist, maybe? You contemplate it, settling on a plain set of shorts and going back to your dining table slash living room slash sewing room slash studio. You have homework to do, and you have to make her something (she can’t just walk around pantless, holy shit), and you’re hungry. You haven’t eaten in over eight hours.

She follows you. It settles your mind a bit, having her in your sight. She just sits in the corner, staring off into nothing, mandibles sliding against themselves. She doesn’t eat, or make any noise. She’s just there.

“What should I call you?” you ask after a few hours of comfortable quiet, roughly into the early AMs and an hour into your Liberal Arts class’s homework. “If you don’t have a name.”

She shrugs. Picks at the shirt. Shrugs again.

“Do you want me to think of something?”

She nods.

Oh joy. You’re terrible at that. “Okay.” This is going to take you forever and you’re not even going to try right now. You’ll think of something stupid, like... Fuckin’. Cotton Candy or some shit. That’s the name you give a pet, not a living sentient thing that just happens to be a pastel nightmare. With a cotton-candy colored haze. And wearing cotton candy pink on her clothes.

Oh no you’re getting attached to the idea abort abort ABORT.

-x-

She calls you Cotton Candy.

She also doesn’t kick you out. You don’t eat her food unless she makes you, you wear whatever she gives you, you pretend to sleep in her living room, you sneak out and devour the unjust and wicked when she isn’t around to notice your disappearance.

For now, life is good.

**Author's Note:**

> I figured it's better to post my original works somewhere other than tumblr and this seems like a good enough place for it.
> 
> Designs:  
> http://yourartistickitten.tumblr.com/tagged/cotton-candy  
> http://yourartistickitten.tumblr.com/tagged/miau-maple-monet


End file.
